The Big House

It's an outsized, abstracted version of everyday life circa 1930.

Dialogue cannot carry the mood, the film as a whole is the vehicle. The accusations therefore remain incidents -- passing and unemphatic. Whatever suggestion of social guilt they contain is dissipated by the events of the story, and their treatment.

George W. Hill expertly directed the film and some of the scenes with prisoners en masse are beautifully choreographed. I love how cinematographer Harold Wenstrom plays with light and shadow especially in the earlier part of the movie.

A good early prison drama with a strong, Oscar-nominated performance of Wallace Beery as a tough murderer; Beery took over after Lon Chaney's sudden death.